Coldhearted Boss

Oh, Ethan.

OH, ETHAN!

I snap back to reality and fling the book away from me like it’s a hot potato, realizing what I’m doing: fantasizing about him! A man I loathe! A man who brings out the worst, most childish side of me. Even this line of thought seems like another mark added against him, though rationally I know he had nothing to do with it. But didn’t he? He’s the one who sleeps in our cabin without a shirt on. He’s the one who purposefully walks out of the bathroom with a low-slung towel around his hips.

Of course, it would be best to handle this as an adult and tell him I’m not comfortable with the lengths he’s resorting to in an effort to get a reaction out of me.

Instead, I wonder if two can play his game.Chapter 19TaylorSunday evening, I kill two birds with one stone. I carry all of my clothes to the mess hall and hide out in there doing my laundry, that way when Ethan arrives back at the cabin it’ll look like I’m still gone for the weekend.

My plan works flawlessly until he strolls by the window and sees me sitting up on the washing machine, finishing my book.

I hear his voice before I see him.

“When did you get back?”

I jerk out of my reading haze and slam the book closed, glancing up in time to see him lean his tall frame against the doorjamb. He’s wearing jeans and a white cotton t-shirt. Somehow, it’s the best he’s ever looked.

“Not long ago,” I say with a casual shrug.

“Huh.”

His eyes are narrowed, but his mouth is edging toward an amused smirk.

“What?” I snap, my good mood wiped clean in five seconds flat.

He tips his head toward the dryer. “It just seems odd. I watched you pack all your stuff on Friday before you left.”

I glance down at the machine currently filled with my clothes, tumbling them dry.

“So?”

“So…you lugged everything home only to repack it and bring it all back here to wash?”

I won’t admit defeat so easily.

I arch a sardonic brow. “Are you always this obsessed with other people’s laundry habits?”

His smile stretches. His dimple pops. He seems to be enjoying this far too much. And well, of course he is. He’s caught me. “Did I not make myself perfectly clear when I told you no one is allowed to stay here on the weekends unless you get prior approval?”

“From who?”

“Me.”

My laugh is short and sarcastic. “You’d never give me approval for anything. In fact, I think you go out of your way to make my life difficult.”

His brow arches. “So then we both agree that’s what we’ve been doing.”

Making each other miserable, he means.

I bite down on my bottom lip and shrug. “Let’s just say I never had any interest in learning how to play guitar before last week.”

He grins then and my stomach clenches tight. I can’t help but remember what I did yesterday morning down by the lake—what I imagined him doing to me—and my cheeks burn with heated embarrassment. Fortunately, his next question thrusts me right back into the present moment.

“Why do you want to stay here on the weekends?”

He assumes I want to?

Well, it’s probably good that he does. I’d rather not correct him. It would only open me up to another line of questioning, and I think a common rule of war is that you don’t give your enemy more information than is totally necessary.

“It’s nice, quiet without you here tormenting me,” I say with a bored tone.

“So you’re going to continue to do it even though I’ve asked you not to?”

He doesn’t seem so against it now.

I tip my head to the side, assessing him. “I don’t know. If it were no longer forbidden, maybe I’d suddenly lose interest.”

He chuckles as he shakes his head, finally pushing off the doorway and turning away, leaving me there with my heart and mind racing after him.Neither of us relents the following week. If anything, we escalate.

Oh, don’t get me wrong—during the day, you’d only ever hear Ethan speaking to me in the same curt, professional tone he uses for everyone. I don’t talk back or utter a single word that could be misinterpreted as insolent. In fact, I’m even better at my job than I was in previous weeks because I’m starting to get the hang of the construction site. In short, I’m flourishing, and Ethan would be crazy to let me go. Even Hudson, Ethan’s loyal sidekick, informs me that it’s much better with me around, though I think that’s just because I keep his and Robert’s desk tidy.

But all that prim-and-properness all day just means we have more energy for antics after quitting time.

Ethan has begun doing leisurely workouts in the center of the cabin. Push-ups, sit-ups, anything and everything that works up a sweat and produces low grunts that remind me of sex every time I hear them.